Page 77 of After-Hours Heir

“I would trade places with you,” he said. “I wish I could take this from you.”

She didn’t speak. And terror froze him.

Everything went quickly.

He could hear metal instruments. Was only half listening to the instructions the doctor was giving. And then, he heard it. A baby crying.

He stood slowly and looked as his son was brought into the world.

“I want to see him,” Sylvie whispered.

“Let her see him,” Christos said.

They brought the baby around, swaddled tightly in a blanket. And suddenly, he was being handed this small, delicate creature who was screaming and crying for a mother that was in danger.

And he was his father.

And all of a sudden he saw himself clearly.

He had always thought of himself as a gladiator.

The important thing to know about a gladiator was that a gladiator was a prisoner. Forced to fight for the entertainment of others.

He had freed himself, but he still thought of himself as a captive. He was still fighting.

He had not been living.

He had been engaging in bloody, pointless battles all these years because it was all he knew.

But standing there holding his tiny infant son, looking down at his wife, he understood something.

He had to walk out of the arena.

He would lay down his life for theirs. He would fight for them. But he would not fight just to prove he could survive. Not anymore.

His father had been a man fighting for his own survival. It made you small and mean and selfish. But Christos… Christos loved Sylvie more than he loved his own life.

He loved this child more than his own life.

He would never abandon them. He would live for them.

He would not live just to survive.

He knelt down and placed the baby next to Sylvie’s face. “There he is, my love,” he said. “Agape, there is our son.”

Sylvie looked up at him, her eyes filling with tears. “He’s beautiful.”

“Of course he is,” he said. “You’re his mother.”

After that, Sylvie was stitched up and brought into a recovery room. Her vitals were being monitored closely, but everything seemed to be returning to normal. The delivery really had done its job.

She was sleeping peacefully, and he was pleased that there were machines ensuring that she was all right. He sat in a rocking chair near the bed holding their son, rocking him back and forth. And then he remembered.

His mother.

She had protected him. She had loved him.

And it was like a wall of ice inside of him began to melt as he looked down at his son. It was like looking at a child of his own had suddenly brought it all back. This was how his mother had felt about him. Because even if she was dying, she had thought only of him.